AdderXYU

eHalcyon wrote:Fair enough, but I'd like to point out one thing - you said a kid needs to reach a certain level of "either skill or maturity." Now you're assume that the kid isn't mature. Sure, she may be quite young, but that is no measure of maturity. I know plenty of kids in elementary school that are very mature - as well as plenty of university students who are not mature at all.

Wanting to submit this design signals "not mature" to me. There's really no nice way around it. Eventually the story ends with this being a bad design that people are encouraging with votes, as though somehow age compensates for quality, and as bad as it is to see mediocre shirts win the derby for what they reference, it is twice as painful to see an obviously poorly done shirt advance in the derby to this level just because the artist is ten. i've seen monkeys paint, and the fact that they're monkeys doesn't make me want to buy it.

Jewdave

AdderXYU wrote:Look, I know I'm going to catch a lot of flack for daring to criticize a child's entry, but there should not be child's entries in the derby. It's the biggest black eye woot has as a contest... what legit designer would find woot, look at the derby, and consider it worth designing for if they found a shirt designed by a ten year old (which looks like it was designed by a ten year old) in the hotness? What does it say about the voters reliability if a kid's entry looks does well enough to be legitimately included over at Best Losers? What does a parent say when their ten year old kid starts getting the sort of critiques that wooters tend to give, and comes running over crying? For all the silly censors, for all the designs people insist are for babies, this is not a kids' site, and it certainly isn't a kids' design site. Which is to say nothing of the 40-something people not related to the kid who voted for it. This isn't "encourage people central." This is a shirt contest. You think you're making a kid feel good, but all you're really doing is making a strong case against your competence to be allowed to choose printable shirts.

First of all this is an open derby so anyone in the public has the ability to possibly some day have a shirt created from their original art. This design is better than many I have seen posted and I also have no question as to whether or not this is an original piece. While I agree that people should not click on the "I'd Want One" button as encouragement for a 10 year old, I do think that a 10, 98, 30, or even 2 year old has the right to submit an entry if it fits into the rules of the contest. If a person wants to wear a shirt that has a 10 year-olds drawing on it, who are you to say otherwise? If this were T-ShirtDesignersOnly.woot.com I would fully support your cause, but it is not. Frankly, I don't think we'd see many of the wonderfully smart and creative entries we do if it were for designers or artists only. Let the voting public decide what they want to wear... Next are you going to tell us we cannot vote for a politician who has no experience in politics?

JadenKale

daedalusknight wrote:Heheh... yeah... I remember seeing a news story about this when we were kids and my parents wound up having to explain to my sister and I how baby production /usually/ worked. I remember thinking they were clearly making it all up. There's no way THAT would lead to babies. :-)

ROFLMAO! I suppose that would have been confusing then. I could see it now "Well, normally the Stork brings the baby... wait, you guys are 5 and 6... um well when mommy and daddy kiss they make a baby... no... because then they'll never date.... Messy things happen and god creates a baby..." *Throws up their hands* "ok, before test tubes, babies began in tupperware... yeah... they'll believe that."

AdderXYU

Jewdave wrote: Next are you going to tell us we cannot vote for a politician who has no experience in politics?

Is he a good politician? Vote for him. Is he a bad politician? Don't.

Same with shirts. If a 10 year old savant came in drawing designs that were threadless quality, my jaw would drop, and i'd hope to see more of them. This is not "tshirt designers only.woot", but there is a difference between being a designer and being printworthy... I've seen many great shirts by amateurs, and many bad ones by pros. But the fact is here, in any other derby, without an age being given anywhere, this design would be lucky to have 5 votes based on the quality. there is no doubt people are voting based on age, not quality, and quality should be a damn big part of the equation, don't you think?

syrrus

daedalusknight

JadenKale wrote:ROFLMAO! I suppose that would have been confusing then. I could see it now "Well, normally the Stork brings the baby... wait, you guys are 5 and 6... um well when mommy and daddy kiss they make a baby... no... because then they'll never date.... Messy things happen and god creates a baby..." *Throws up their hands* "ok, before test tubes, babies began in tupperware... yeah... they'll believe that."

Heheh. My parents were awfully progressive when it came to explaining it to us. They saw the news story as an opportunity to discuss it in a relatively mature fashion. Maybe you can blame it on them being teens in the 60's, but my parents told us exactly how babies are made with no sense of it being a shameful thing or giggling matter, and certainly not something that should be repressed and not talked about. As a result, each of us as adults had developed a very mature, very reasonable attitude about sex. We all made it to adulthood without a single teen pregnancy or STD scare and we've all had great track records in relationships.

Of course, when I was first hearing about it, there was no way I thought it actually worked that way. :-)

syrrus

hfracing1 wrote:rumor has it that all the stockpiled parts from the cars were to be put to use and a limited number of cars were to be made somewhere in the higher 5 figures or so

The new DeLorean Motor Company is home-based in Dallas. Some time ago the company purchased the rights to the DeLorean name as well as the logos, and has made their business by servicing and re-manufacturing DMC-12s. Although the company started by buying up as many original spare parts as it could find, it has since contracted with a number of original OEMs to manufacture new and/or reproduction parts. In 2006 this supply became sufficient enough that they have stopped re-manufacturing old cars and are now able to build-to-order new vehicles from scratch. Base models start at $57,500, and a number of factory options are available, including a 197hp engine, cosmetic upgrades, and several interior modernizations.

Information about the company can be found here: http://www.delorean.com/

Jewdave

AdderXYU wrote:Is he a good politician? Vote for him. Is he a bad politician? Don't.

Same with shirts. If a 10 year old savant came in drawing designs that were threadless quality, my jaw would drop, and i'd hope to see more of them. This is not "tshirt designers only.woot", but there is a difference between being a designer and being printworthy... I've seen many great shirts by amateurs, and many bad ones by pros. But the fact is here, in any other derby, without an age being given anywhere, this design would be lucky to have 5 votes based on the quality. there is no doubt people are voting based on age, not quality, and quality should be a damn big part of the equation, don't you think?

But who is to determine quality? The ultimate consumer is the only person that matters in this competition. To many Jackson Pollock's work looks like what a 10 year-old could create, yet his work is still considered art, and on top of that, highly influential art that had a hand in changing the publics view of great art.

In the end, if someone wants to wear something a child obviously created, let them!

mjc613

First of all, I LIKE THIS AND WOULD WEAR IT. Many of you may be too young to remember ties with children's drawings on them. The ties were sold as a fundraiser for a charity ( can't remember which one), but they sold because they really looked good, even with a dark suit. I think this would look good on a shirt, but you don't have to agree with me.

Second of all, I think it is late enough in the derby that this kind of entry should be fine. I agree that having a "just for fun" or "encouragement vote" shirt get into the hotness on the first day is not a good thing. But by now, the only new entries that get all the way to the top are the really outstanding ones. In fact, it takes a lot to get into the top 100 if you enter at this point. I realize that getting into the hotness at this point takes momentum away from other designs, but in general, that only lasts for about an hour or 2, and then the novelty wears off. This is just my observation, not based on any statistics, sanctioned or otherwise.

If by some fluke this won, I would buy 2. It's exponentially better than anything woot has put in the dailies for weeks, and better than many derby entries, past and present. If I am in the minority for thinking that, so be it.

AdderXYU

Jewdave wrote:But who is to determine quality? The ultimate consumer is the only person that matters in this competition. To many Jackson Pollock's work looks like what a 10 year-old could create, yet his work is still considered art, and on top of that, highly influential art that had a hand in changing the publics view of great art.

In the end, if someone wants to wear something a child obviously created, let them!

i can't believe I'm seriously arguing about a 10-year-old's design being wearable or not. Woot has seriously reached a new low.

mjc613

edlada wrote:Umm, Nixon resigned in 1973, what is the relevance to 1975? I wouldn't wear Nixon on a shirt no matter what anyway. Evil bastage.

Nixon resigned in 74. His top 4 aides were sentenced for the Watergate crimes in 75. There are some sources on the web that incorrectly show Nixon in office until 75. Also, the VietNam war ended in 75, but much of the shutdown was orchestrated by Nixon while he was in office.

cadedude

As a Biotechnology grad, I couldn't possibly get away with wearing this on-campus where the real chemists might see me and reveal my ignorance. Myself, I'm hoping for the Human Genome Project shirt to declare victory. That said, there's an unreasonable shortage of geek shirts that aren't about video games or programming, so more power to you for the design.

trapical

Awesome shirt. However I admit I am a bit irritated. Yes Zelda came out in 1986 but is ANYONE here from Japan? Seriously, none of us played the game until 1987 when I was released in the States. *grumble*

Wouldn't bother me that much but I was born in 1987... ON AUGUST 22, 1987.

daedalusknight

Adder, while I agree with some of what you say, the vitriolic and (dare I pun) venomous way in which you say it seems to be what causes other people on here to disagree with you so strongly. I have noticed, being a bit of a vote watcher this derby, that almost anyone whose shirt gets attacked in an acidic manner (regardless of whether the complaints are well-founded or spurious) tends to gain votes more rapidly.

Surely someone who spends as much time thinking about shirts and designing as yourself can see the results of virulent attacks merely makes the attacker’s problem worse, not better. You can see that rather than discouraging people from voting for the shirts you dislike, you’re actually encouraging them. I understand that you’re quite upset by a lot of the things that happen here that you feel are either unfair or, at the very least, unsupervised by Woot. I understand the frustration of seeing poorly designed shirts get a lot of votes when your own shirts get ignored (I experience that myself, believe me). I’m hoping, though, that you can express your emotions in ways that are no less concrete and powerful, but that leave voters with less of a bad taste in their mouths having read your comments. It’s not a matter of “playing nice” to try to avoid hurting people’s feelings. Rather it’s acting in your own self-interest to accomplish your goals rather than encourage people to do the opposite of what you would like them to do.

I think this is getting kind of long for a post, so I’m going to address my ideas about a ten-year-old designer in the next post I make in this thread.

eHalcyon

AdderXYU wrote:Wanting to submit this design signals "not mature" to me. There's really no nice way around it. Eventually the story ends with this being a bad design that people are encouraging with votes, as though somehow age compensates for quality, and as bad as it is to see mediocre shirts win the derby for what they reference, it is twice as painful to see an obviously poorly done shirt advance in the derby to this level just because the artist is ten. i've seen monkeys paint, and the fact that they're monkeys doesn't make me want to buy it.

Eh, I wouldn't call that immature. She just wanted to submit something - doesn't speak much about maturity.

AdderXYU wrote:there is no doubt people are voting based on age, not quality, and quality should be a damn big part of the equation, don't you think?

While I'm sure some people WOULD wear buy and wear this, I do have to agree with this statement. I think that most people would not have voted for this if not for the age of the artist, as mean as that sounds. ><

mjc613 wrote:If by some fluke this won, I would buy 2. It's exponentially better than anything woot has put in the dailies for weeks, and better than many derby entries, past and present. If I am in the minority for thinking that, so be it.

I think I have to agree with that. The most recent run of dailies has been quite underwhelming.

AdderXYU wrote:i can't believe I'm seriously arguing about a 10-year-old's design being wearable or not. Woot has seriously reached a new low.

The engineer in me wants to point out that this is a fallacious argument that has nothing to do with the original conversation. ;) Also, I don't see why you had to mention the age again - you said earlier that age had nothing to do with it. =P

I see no reason why the girl shouldn't submit her design and no reason why people shouldn't vote for it if they want to. Many people have probably been voting because of the age of the designer, but most of those voters would probably actually buy and wear this as well, for the reason described by mjc613.

Is it the best design? I say no. Is that an unquestionable truth? I will hit you with an International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge question and ask you what truth is - something set in stone to begin with, or whatever the community as a whole decides is true?

This late in the game, there is virtually no chance of this design winning anyway. This is true of any design submitted so late and not a judgement of quality. There's really no point in arguing about this - it's inane and a moot point, really. If you really want to make a kerfuffle, wait until she makes the fog in the next derby. ;)

Once more to the designer - I hope these comments aren't too discouraging, but as Jimiyo has recently pointed out, the woot community is HARSH. ^^

eHalcyon

daedalusknight wrote:Adder, while I agree with some of what you say, the vitriolic and (dare I pun) venomous way in which you say it seems to be what causes other people on here to disagree with you so strongly. I have noticed, being a bit of a vote watcher this derby, that almost anyone whose shirt gets attacked in an acidic manner (regardless of whether the complaints are well-founded or spurious) tends to gain votes more rapidly.

Surely someone who spends as much time thinking about shirts and designing as yourself can see the results of virulent attacks merely makes the attacker’s problem worse, not better. You can see that rather than discouraging people from voting for the shirts you dislike, you’re actually encouraging them. I understand that you’re quite upset by a lot of the things that happen here that you feel are either unfair or, at the very least, unsupervised by Woot. I understand the frustration of seeing poorly designed shirts get a lot of votes when your own shirts get ignored (I experience that myself, believe me). I’m hoping, though, that you can express your emotions in ways that are no less concrete and powerful, but that leave voters with less of a bad taste in their mouths having read your comments. It’s not a matter of “playing nice” to try to avoid hurting people’s feelings. Rather it’s acting in your own self-interest to accomplish your goals rather than encourage people to do the opposite of what you would like them to do.

I think this is getting kind of long for a post, so I’m going to address my ideas about a ten-year-old designer in the next post I make in this thread.

Je d'accord!

Hmm... perhaps I should make some random accounts and troll my own designs when next I enter a derby...

daedalusknight

Okay, so now I’m going to speak directly to your points about this entry.

Can it be dangerous, emotionally, for a child to enter a derby where adults are competing?

Yes, it most certainly can be. Parents should very much consider whether a child is emotionally mature enough to handle being in a competition, as it can be a great disappointment and, as you point out, many people can be very mean and vicious in their comments about a shirt’s design. A parent considering this should speak with the child before letting her or him take part. The parent should be sure that the child knows that she or he probably will not win and also that there will be people making critical comments about the shirt as well. The parent should monitor the things said about the shirt design and only allow the child to read comments that the parent feels the child is ready for. That’s good web behavior in general, not just for shirt contests.

Can a child’s design take attention from other, more sophisticated designs?

Yes, it absolutely can. Being an uncle, though, I know quite well that there’s a gigantic market for things that look like children created them. Families with young kids buy that stuff all the time. Heck, I even know a guy in the greeting card business whose job is to draw art that looks like a child did it. It sells greeting cards and it will sell shirts too.

Is it unfair to use a designer’s age as a selling point to get votes?

Well it’s not exactly playing nice, but people present all kinds of personal information that winds up getting votes for them. If this were a competition where nobody told any stories, nobody explained the meaning of a shirt or why they did it, then we most certainly would have a different voting result. Would that mean we would get “better” shirts out of the derby? I really don’t think so. There seem to be a ton of people who don’t even bother reading the forum at all, much less participate in it. They seem to be, by and large, the majority (if I can count the number of votes and the number of posters as a good indicator there). They very often pick quite poorly designed shirts. And then pay money for them.

Clearly he’s no Monet, but he’s managed to grasp shading, composition, and (if that dog painting at the beginning is any indication) he’s going to have a handle on foreshortening by the time he’s ten, I’m sure. That’s more than I can say for a lot of adult entries on here.

Now, despite having said all this, I’m actually very much on your side. I really don’t want this to become a “kid’s art” site where we’re flooded with dozens of entries by children every week. I don’t want to see a lot of young artists get discouraged from doing art because their parents didn’t prepare them properly for an adult world. I really, REALLY don’t want to see artists who are wonderful designers come here and conclude that this derby is a joke and then decide not to participate.

But I think it’s okay to allow an exception here and there, either for a very mature child who knows what he or she is getting and whose parent can help that child deal with the adult nature of this site in a positive way... or for a prodigy... a Mozart, if you will, of shirt design, who can do better than most of the designers here, despite a very young age. I would encourage the parents of either one of these exceptions to not make the child’s age known in the derby entry (I realize there wasn’t a choice this time around... but in the future). I very much encourage the parent to be a strong filter on this site and not let the child see all the adult things that get said around here, especially not the most angry and virulent attacks on the design.

Whew... that was way, way more than I intended to say, but I guess I got on a roll. Sorry for making all you folk bored to tears by now, I’m sure. :-)

daedalusknight

I think, actually, you were killed by helpful comments more than harsh ones. People pointed out in a factual manner what they didn't like about the design or why it broke Woot's rules... though I did see a few scathing poison pen letters in there...

AdderXYU

Hmm... perhaps I should make some random accounts and troll my own designs when next I enter a derby...

i have considered this myself... attacking shirts i secretly wanted. I've decided i'm just not that much of a jerk, tho.

i know the cause and effect. As has been said, this late in the game it doesn't matter, it won't win. and that's why it needs to be said. If this makes top 10 out of pity votes or spite for me, it's high enough that woot can't say they didn't notice, and every design woot can't say they didn't notice is a victory, however small. In time, woot will need to make their intentions as a shirt company clear. If they want to be a competition that people think of as a joke, these entries will roll off their backs. if they want to be taken seriously as a shirt site, there will be a breaking point. This should be filed away in woot's mental bank. If it increases votes, so be it... the victory is in making sure it can't be ignored.

Playing nice is fine and good. But for everyone who may feel i'm too harsh, there is likely another saying "thank god SOMEONE said something." Let he who has never laughed at a heather pickens entry cast the first stone.

And as to the small novella posted since I began this, there is a major difference between art by a child and child art. The horses you note are definitely better than I have the skill to make. and they're also not submit to this derby. You bring that kid here, let her compete, you won't hear a peep outta me. If woot decided that all shirts needed to be as well done as said horses, I'd take my rejections like a man until my skill improved enough for their standards. The fact is, this particular entry should not be treated differently from any adult MS Paint debacle. It's the same quality, and should be judged thusly. It's not about a ten year old submitting, it's about submitting the work of an average 10 year old. This should be equally discouraged no matter what the age, but the truth of the matter is, this same work wouldn't be getting any votes from an adult. Because it's not good. Let that be inspiration to improve, instead of letting a whole bunch of undeserved votes create a delusion leading to week after week of work just like this, with no desire to improve upon what's already working.

daedalusknight

AdderXYU wrote:Playing nice is fine and good. But for everyone who may feel i'm too harsh, there is likely another saying "thank god SOMEONE said something." Let he who has never laughed at a heather pickens entry cast the first stone.

Again, I have no problem with you saying something. I very often agree with what you have to say and am glad to have heard you say it. I just would prefer if you expressed your opinions with more care. Take a look at what I've done with a few shirts this derby. Darth Vader shirt, as an example, was withdrawn by the user without having to be rejected by Woot. The result of that is that the shirt that's not going to be made anyway is not taking away attention from better shirts that actually have a chance at being published.

I'm not asking for a complete turnaround in your style of expression. Just a bit more carefulness in how you express yourself. I think Bluchez (hope I spelled that correctly) does an good job of this... letting people know what they did wrong but also decidedly not expressing it in a way that insults the person.

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